


tadaima

by oogenesis



Series: homecoming [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 08:43:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10159088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oogenesis/pseuds/oogenesis
Summary: the announcement of a return home.





	

The first thing he notices is the sound of his own breath.

In, out. 

In, out. 

It's so very loud. His lungs have to pump constantly, relentlessly, expand and contract, neverending. How did he ever do this, once upon a time?

Next. His heartbeat, pulsing in his chest and wrists and the spot below his jaw; a steady ticking rush in his ears. 

A heartbeat. He's really alive.

His newfound breath hitches at the thought.

Arms legs face torso hands feet hair skin muscle bones. It's all there. Solid and real and entirely his own. He curls in tighter in on himself, feels the muscles and tendons contracting in the movement, and -

and with that movement comes external awareness. He's curled up on his side on a rough cold wet surface. The air around him is damp and chilly and blows wind across his naked skin. His fingers and toes are starting to go numb.

He opens his eyes. For a moment all he sees an incomprehensible blur, a jumble of shapes that bears no earthly meaning - then his eyes and his brain remember how to process images. He's lying on cold wet asphalt in the dingy space of behind-a-building. The time appears to be either just before daybreak or just after nightfall. The trees silhouetted against the twilit blue sky have only a few leaves clinging to their branches.

He gets up. The process is laborious - he has to press his arms against the ground, feel them tremble as they take his weight, then bring his legs under him. One knee drags against the ground and comes away ragged red. The pain is bright and cold and he gasps; he's forgotten what it felt like to hurt.

Stand up. Knees shake, ankles wobble, then he's steady.

He turns around in a circle and realizes he's behind Domino High School. Then he realizes - with a dizzy feeling like wonder, like fate - that this is the place where the last piece clicked into the puzzle and he was awoken for the first time in centuries.

How much time has passed? He realizes this with a sick jolt. Are they all old, or have they moved away, or died - is _he_ -

He forces the thoughts out of his head. First he'll go home, and then he'll figure out what to do from there.

…Home. The appearance of the word, so natural and unprompted, jolts his train of thought but - well, it's true, isn't it? That's where his heart is. As the saying goes.

He starts walking. It takes a while to get used to - lift the foot, put it down, lift the other foot, put it down, ankles wobble and asphalt stings - but once he does he points his feet in the direction of the Kame Game shop.

The wind comes in wet gusts. A few drops tap his skin and he wraps his arms around himself, aware of his nakedness. There's an abandoned raincoat draped over a bike rack some ways away and he angles toward it. The fabric on the inside is damp and stained but it'll do; he pulls it on, shivering as the wetness touches his skin. It's chilly but it'll at least keep his body heat close to the skin, and he won't die of cold. 

Nor will he get arrested for indecent exposure, he remembers a little belatedly. The rules and laws of this world are a too-solid jumble in his mind after the hazy golden glow of the afterlife.

As he walks the sky darkens, its blue deepening, and the streetlights come on in such a way that takes him a while to notice. In their pallid yellow glow his skin looks gray and corpselike - but he's breathing, he's walking, he's _alive_.

Against the cold wet asphalt his toes are growing numb. He thinks of the game shop, thinks of the familiar kitchen, the bedroom with its ceiling-slanted wall and skyward-facing window through which he’d often sat and watched the stars, safe and warm and loved; thinks of this as his fingers cramp from holding the borrowed coat tight against himself. And again the question - how long has it been?

There’s only a couple blocks left, if he remembers correctly - on this roundabout route, dodging through backstreets to not attract attention in his shambling nearly-naked unsteadiness - but with his slow newborn pace it’s enough time to worry. The stores and streets around him look familiar enough. He’s not sure if he recognizes any of the people, since he’s trying to avoid running into any, and those he does are strangely lit in the streetlamp lights. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He passes an awning that definitely bears a different name than he remembers it having, and experiences a jolt of uncertainty - a storefront can change hands in a year, but it can also change hands in ten.

One more street. One more street that he makes his sore-feet way down, avoiding eye contact, and then -

There it is, the Kame Game shop, lit warmly from the inside like caramel. Home. _Home_. It’s still there. His heart is beating in his throat as he walks carefully up to the door, belatedly realizes his appearance might scare any customers, and goes around to the back door instead. Behind him, in the streetlight, is the front walkway that Sugoroku would sweep on bright mornings while - while -

Back door. The doorbell is cold against his hand, and the effort it takes to press it in is a little sore. He hears it echo from inside the house.

Then he waits, shifts in his spot, the dusk cool blue around him with a single square of gold from the door’s window above his head. He can’t see anything. His heart is full to bursting in his throat.

Footsteps behind the door, the click of the lock and the wrench of the handle - his heartbeat crescendoing to fever pitch. Then the door is flung open. “Sorry, I -“

The voice that is as familiar to him as his own name - more, even - stops short.

Yugi says, “Oh.” Very softly, more like a puff of air escaping his lungs than a real word.

For a while neither of them says anything. The golden light of inside, warm dry home, spills out the door over them; Yugi is silhouetted against it; there’s muffled music playing from inside while cars go by in the distance. Yugi’s mouth is slightly open, his eyes growing wider and wider.

He looks a little older. He’s grown, flourished, become tall and strong and proud. Neither of them can speak. 

Yugi’s hand reaches out and touches his shoulder, moves up to his face, breathtakingly warm and soft and alive. “It’s -“ he says, and struggles to speak. “It’s really you?”

“Yes, I -” His voice comes out hoarse and raspy from newly-formed vocal cords that have not yet been used. He clears his throat and tries again. “It’s me.”

He catches Yugi’s hand and Yugi’s eyes go a little wider.

“I’m home,” manages Atem, and Yugi's face, slowly, like dawn, breaks into an incredulous delighted smile with the edge of a disbelieving laugh - and Yugi bundles him into his arms, buries his face in his neck, drowns him in solid living loving warmth and inhales deeply as if trying to memorize the smell and sight and feel of him, and whispers, “Welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments and feedback are greatly appreciated.
> 
> should i tag this with puzzleshipping? i'm trying to keep this and the sequel to it sort of.....carefully not-explicitly-romantic but still with blatant undertones, similar to what one might find in canon gay moments. should i tag that or leave it marked as gen?


End file.
